At Jameson First Shot, three filmmakers will have the awesome opportunity to have their scripts turned into short films by Kevin Spacey’s Trigger Street Productions, and to direct Oscar winner Adrien Brody in the lead role.

The winning shorts will also be premiered in LA with the team in attendance. We think it’s a great opportunity – and we’re helping Jameson First Shot to find UK filmmakers to use the competition as a great step on the ladder in their careers.

London Short Film Festival are helping to recruit filmmakers too, and the ever knowledgeable Philip Ilson has shared his thoughts on the importance of short films and taking advantage of all the opportunities that come your way, by hook or by crook!

“Every person that has made a film in the history of film ever has made a short film. The first ever films were shorts (before the standard approximately 90 to 100 minutes became the norm in Hollywood and internationally from the twenties onwards). We are bombarded with shorts continuously, from adverts to promos to on-line virals, and short artist film works are exhibited in gallery spaces the world over. And then there is the more traditional accepted idea of a short film: A short drama that plays at film festivals and gets new talent noticed by the accepted film industry. In the general scheme of things, within the cinematic medium, shorts are incredibly important. Without them, the filmmakers that make it into our cinemas and onto our TVs and laptops, wouldn’t exist. But with this saturation of the moving image, on all these different platforms, how does talent get noticed? Of course, we hope that the good talent can rise to the top, but even talented filmmakers have to put themselves out there, or they will get lost.

The Jameson First Shot film competition recognises this, and can really help talented filmmakers come through and get noticed. It was set up by Kevin Spacey in partnership with Dana Brunetti of Trigger Street Productions with the knowledge that for the wealth of filmmaking talent there is out there, getting a first shot in the industry is notoriously difficult. And it’s important for filmmakers to want to develop; I meet so many who are very driven, with their eyes and hearts set on BAFTAs and other awards, and on a respected festival circuit. I also enjoy meeting the ones who don’t have that traditional career vision, but are making excellent work. Maybe they are filmmakers who have a different outlook, looking more towards gallery work, or maybe they are filmmakers who just enjoy doing it for themselves. Sometimes this work can be the more creatively interesting, as there’s no remit in place to play the game. Sometimes, these filmmakers can be the ones that do break through; I feel that filmmakers like David Lynch and Jonathan Glazer, and groundbreaking European filmmakers from Godard to Tarkovsy, from Antonioni to the Dardenne Brothers, have always thought about their work rather than how they are going to get ahead in the industry. And of course, these are the filmmakers who have become part of the cinematic canon of film history, who broke the mould, whom we constantly go back to and study.

This isn’t to say that every short filmmaker is a potential Godard, but for me, I get very excited by those filmmakers who are pushing the envelope, which is really hard at a time in history when ‘everything has been done’. When programming for LSFF, I am always amazed at how many times I do get blown away by a new short, particularly when I’m watching thousands of short films a year. What excites me is giving those filmmakers a chance to screen at a reputable Festival in a reputable cinema venue, especially if it’s filmmaker who hasn’t played the circuit, who seems to have come from nowhere. At Jameson First Shot, this idea can be developed to actually offer such filmmakers a chance to go to that next level, to make something high profile with a reputable production company and filmmaking team. Jameson First Shot is a way to bypass the more traditional routes of career development that relies on the slog of making contacts and networking yourself into the ground.

At Jameson First Shot, three winners will have an opportunity to have their scripts turned into short films and to direct Adrien Brody in the lead role. The winning shorts will be premiered in LA with the team in attendance. Full details can be found at jamesonfirstshot.com

-Philip Ilson, Creative Director, London Short Film Festival